Putting God in a Box
“You can’t put God in a box!”
“Just because something is outside your comfort zone doesn’t mean God isn’t moving!”
“God can do anything He wants!”
While all of these statements can be true, they are often used to defend unscriptural and therefore ungodly practices.
God means what He says.
God means every word He speaks. God holds Himself to His own perfect words. God expects believers to hold to His words.
17 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: 18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
Hebrews 6:17-18
In this passage, the heirs of the promise of God have hope because He has made the promise of His own immutable counsel. He has made an oath. God cannot act against His word; He cannot lie.
Is this putting God in a box? No! God always and only acts in accordance with His character and word.
God has established some parameters that we are to expect Him to operate within.
God chooses to work within exclusive means.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John 14:6
Jesus is the only way to have access to the Father. Is He putting Himself in a box? Well, He is certainly describing clear and exclusive limitations on how He is choosing to operate.
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Acts 4:12
God’s plan for salvation and redemption is only accessible and achievable through the person and work of Jesus Christ. If you are reading this, I hope and trust you already agree with and understand this when it comes to salvation.
God has also given us some exclusive ways to live and practice our faith. God has put restrictions on how we are to worship Him. God has given requirements for how a Christian is to live.
Some of these areas will allow slight room for disagreement in interpretation and practice as long as we are honest with Scripture and led by the Spirit. But when a fellow believer is earnestly trying to apply God’s holy and gracious words to his life, it is foolish and ignorant to dismissively say, “You are just putting God in a box!” or “You just don’t like anyone relating to God differently than you.”
Even our relation to God is only as sure as our faith in Who God says He is and Who He has revealed Himself to be through His word! Jesus, the Living Word and “express image” of the Father, is known to us through the written word of Scripture.
When we try to interpret the Bible through our lens of lived and even spiritual experience, we have it backward. God’s word should be the lens we interpret our experience through. Again, this is not limiting or boxing in God; this is by faith, taking Him at His word.
God does not act contrary to His word and does not want us to act contrary to His word.
This point should be assumed and included in the previous two, but for sake of extreme clarity, we will err on the side of redundancy.
God says what He means. He acts in accordance with what He says. He says and acts in accordance with what He thinks and desires. It is all connected.
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Numbers 23:19
When we claim the moving and acting of God is taking place in circumstances not according to His prescribed word, we are making God out to be double-minded. Now you may have a defense and argument of why these circumstances and events are, in fact, in alignment with Scripture. If so, then make that argument. But if you make the claim that others are limiting God because of their dependence on Scripture, you cast doubt on the words of God.
The first few chapters of Genesis introduce us to a God who is. God speaks, and it comes to pass, and it is very good. Everything is in accordance with His word. Then the serpent convinces Eve that she can have true godly knowledge and be more like God via a means that was directly contrary to His word. He convinced Eve that her relationship with God shouldn’t be limited by His word. She could experience more, and maybe be more like God. The serpent convinced her to think and act outside of the box of God’s word.
Conclusion
Believers all across the world are eagerly trying to fully experience God. People throng to events, churches, and revivals where they hear that “God is moving.” Some turn to nonbiblical means of revelation, private spiritual interpretation, or even physical and emotional methods of stimulation in hopes of spiritual experiences.
But God speaks through His word. Yes, we have the Holy Spirit of God to help us, but the Spirit, being God, acts through His word. We are to know God and about God primarily through His word.
Read John 1, Hebrews 1, and 1 John 1, and you will see that God speaks to us today through His revealed Word, God the Son. We have knowledge of the truth of the Son of God because it has been recorded for us by the Spirit of God in the received written words of God.
I am not necessarily called to judge whether something is the working of God or not for every other believer. I am expected by God to take Him at His word and live by His word. If anything ever seems contrary to it, I will side with the word of God. If that is putting God in a box, then it is a box defined by God Himself. Genuine Christian disagreements exist, but may they always be based and rooted in Scripture.
